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An anonymous reader writes with a link to Der Spiegel, which describes a Top-Secret spy-agency catalog which reveals that the NSA "has been secretly back dooring equipment from US companies including Dell, Cisco, Juniper, IBM, Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor and more, risking enormous damage to US tech sector." Der Spiegel also has a wider ranging article about the agency's Tailored Access Operations unit.

There FTFY... Talking to non IT people, the thing that most people don't seem to have understood is that Snowdon and hundreds of administrators from private contractors like him had uncontrolled access to all of the data. Those people will for 100% sure include some spies from hostile powers like Russia, China and North Korea. Some of those people will have already extracted data. People working for the NSA and DOD wrote the orange book [wikipedia.org] about this. They have no excuse to pretend they didn't know that gathering all this data together would be dangerous.

The real thing that the NSA and GCHQ are trying to hide, is not the spying. It is that they were caught seriously endangering their countries for profit.

The NSA has also pointed out this way how atrociously bad commercial "security elements" typically are. I foresee that the market will change and not for the better for the US. But overall, I disagree. This is going to make us all more secure (well, maybe not anybody in the US), because economic espionage by the NSA is now a clearly visible reality that everybody has to defend against. And the NSA is not using any magic, just standard criminal practices on a large budget. That commercial firewalls are not t

"loose cannon"? Bullshit.Don't you think for one damn minute that the NSA is "off the ranch" with their programs. They were implemented at the behest of our beloved and benevolent leaders.The "justice" branch (haha) just declared everything is just fine after all. The executive branch and legislative branch has already said time and time again that the NSA is doing useful and important work.

What really chaps my ass, is not that the government tells people these programs are for the so-called "war on terror" or that certainly, the government would never use it against non-terrorist, but the that nearly every poll indicates that most 'mericans fucking believe them!I know they have done their best over the last 40 years to indoctrinate kids starting in kindergartener, but it is sad that so many folks just close their eyes and refuse to ask hard questions.Think about it...forcing children to pledge allegiance to a government... It is fucking crazy. We are brainwashed never to question our masters, and it is working. Fuck, look at the shit your facebook friends post! That is a representation of America.Disclosure, I feel I have the right to bitch. I did my 4 years in the services and about half that was in the shitty hotspots of the world keeping and eye on brown people.

Since the public record indicates that the vast majority of terrorist attacks that the NSA has helped stopped are overseas, outside the US

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Let it be known that uber-con cold fjord has acknowledged that the NSA's domestic meta-data program (section 215) has stopped zero terrorist attacks inside the US and that the overseas meta-data interception program (section 702) has "helped" to stop one, perhaps two attacks in the US.

The Belgium plot, though not confirmed to be one of the 50 that relied on the recently revealed secretive NSA program to monitor online messages, appears to fit the bill.

On December 11, 2008, Belgian authorities arrested an al Qaeda cell in Brussels that they feared had been planning a suicide bombing attack.

An intercepted e-mail from one of the cell members to his ex-girlfriend indicated he was about to launch a suicide attack. A defense lawyer in the case told CNN that prosecutors at trial acknowledged that the United States intercepted the communication and passed it to the Belgians.

Have we already acquiesced to the NSA's desired reality?
Were these criminal activities which could not have been prevented by old-fashioned police work done within the law or were Orwellian-scale intrusions absolutely necessary?

I seriously doubt it. Serious terrorist don't really break the law and become subjects of scrutiny by the authorities until after they break the law. In other words, they are meticulous and methodical in setting out to do what they are doing and you often will not know anything about it until after it happens unless some connection is created somewhere that draws attention to them.

Of course this is easier accomplished in some countries then others, but the end result would be the real old fashion type polic

They lied to congress, and have a a long history of evil. [wikipedia.org] It would be foolish to trust anything they say. See, that's the thing with secrets and lies: You can never trust anything they say to be true. "Oh we're strengthening security." Prove it -- Could be weakening security instead, we don't know because: Secrets. Oh, so they say these guys are terrorists? Prove it. You'll have to use independent evidence -- not like digital records can't be fabricated, what with all the routers and systems backdoored or exploited. [theatlantic.com] They could have written the damn email from the guy's system themselves at a whim. These spooks are real creeps, tasked with socio-political control, not safety. What they do is target "radicals". They thought the Civil Rights Movement was "radical". The Privacy Rights Movement is considered "radical" too, especially since it requires an end government secrets. Everyone knows the atrocities the CIA gets up to, you think any of theses guys have qualms about silencing "radicals" any way they can?

Anyone think these programs are beneficial? That's an unproven claim. Disprove the null hypothesis: No secret spy organization can be proven to be beneficial. They can't be proven to be telling the truth. A secret oversight committee just moves the problem around.

You're 4 times more likely to die from lightning strike. The flu kills six times more people than a 9/11 scale attack every ear. Cars and cheeseburgers have killed Four Thousand times more lives than a 9/11 scale attack since 9/11. [cdc.gov] The cost to benefit ratio of the spying programs is ridiculous. Life is dangerous: There are risks that are acceptable. If we're brave enough to drive the kids to get a Happy Meal, then what possible fear can we have of a minuscule in comparison terrorist threat? Even if all 50 of those supposed bombers would have gone off, they'd still wouldn't justify the cost to privacy, freedom, and trust in our governments -- Falling down in the shower is more dangerous than terrorists. Where's the free government bath-mats if terrorists are such a big concern? Mutually assured destruction means big countries are no threat. The cold war didn't end, the military industrial complex just turned on its own people in secret. Everything Eisenhower warned us about came true. [youtube.com]

The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings.- John F. Kennedy

Please, don't be an asshole, at least not for good reason.Why you would think one particular ancient metaphor in one particular language must be known by all the 7 billion people in all corners of this planet is beyond me.

While it's not new to me (thanks to my neurotic love for historical-fiction set in the day of Nelson)...

Yeah. Most people aren't even remotely aware of how many common phrases come from our maritime past, let alone are familiar with metaphors that have widely fallen out of use.

This is literally the first time I've seen "loose cannon on a rolling ship" in about five years. Sure, it's the full-length version of, "loose cannon" - but since the latter part has long been cut off, your average pers

Don't use US service providers. It should be obvious by now, but the reason why the US warn about all kinds of subversion and attacks is that they know what they themselves are doing to the rest of the world.

i wonder if many companies were listed from around the world, but spiegel focused on US companies because the anti-american angle works well for them.

It is not the Spiegel that wrote the slashdot summary, it is the Spiegel that wrote the article that includes the non-American companies, and the American Slashdot that only included American companies. So how about rethinking your comment?

A document viewed by SPIEGEL resembling a product catalog reveals that an NSA division called ANT has burrowed its way into nearly all the security architecture made by the major players in the industry -- including American global market leader Cisco and its Chinese competitor Huawei, but also producers of mass-market goods, such as US computer-maker Dell.

Huawei is not at the top of my list of companies that would put in back doors for US

Alas it's rather hard to avoid intel & AMD for those who are tied to the architecture.

Now my Alpha's long dead, and my POWER is getting rather long in the tooth, I suspect my next purchase will be a Loongsoon-powered box.

Note that the mention of Samsung in the article is a little bit wrong - they sold their HDD division to Seagate (a US company, modulo tax-evasion) in 2011. Whether their SSDs are compromis{ed,able} is another matter.

OK, the article itself is not wrong. I just didn't want people to jump to the conclusion that because a modern HDD says "Samsung" on it, it's not a US device. (In the context of "Don't buy from US companies", i.e. this sub-thread.)

It was unfortunate that the article mentioned the US-iness of those manufacturers, so I conflated the two sentences and caused confusion.

From what I remember, Samsung disk drives didn't implement SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology)It would tell you useful things like how many times your disk drive had been powered up and down, longest seek time, number of bad sectors, highest temperature, longest spin-up time. Just about everything a sys-admin would ever want to know.

Samsun's SSD & HDD firmware was written jointly in US & Korea, with US code patches coming from Samsung Information System America (SISA) in Silicon Valley. This ended in 2013 when Seagate bought Samsung's HDD division in 2013 and fired all the HDD engineers at SISA. Samsung's SSD firmware is still a joint effort.

Much of the US-branded kit is fabbed and manufactured in China, yes. Occasionally ipods (iphones?) ship with MS Windows viruses because of this. However, that was sloppiness rather than malice.

The reason I'd be interested in a Loongson Lemote box is that it does have a remarkably open design at almost all levels. You could create your own version of the processor on an FPGA if you so desired. The same isn't true of intel, AMD, NVidia, Freescale, TI, Samsung (or any ARM SoC vendors) etc. I think several generations of Sparc are equally open too, you'd have to check opencores. The layer above the hardware - the BIOS - is also open in Lemote (Loongson) devices. And of course you can run your own (open) OS on top of that. I don't know of any more open device. It's the best way to go if you're Richard Stallman, certainly (it's what he's used and recommended for half a decade). For anyone else, YMMV.

If I was the NSA and I wanted to make sure there was a way to get into a Loongsn device - I'd aim at the AMD chipset that it uses. If you control the flow of all data, you effectively control everything.

Nothing's 100% trustworthy. I like strength through depth though.

I appreciate that this doesn't answer your question particularly well, but it just some closely related thoughts.

When the leading target is political extortion, I don't want anyone to have the keys except the voting public. The reality here is the NSA was actively seeking to target as many foreign politicians as possible in order to extort compliance in favour of US military industrial complex partners, creating as many traitors as possible in order to cripple any country that competes in any way with US for profit interests, screwing over those countries citizens, regardless of the harm produced, in favour of US par

For this to work you would need a world wide network for the ability to get your code in and the information out. Very few countries have access to the telco networks globally to do that, to hide and keep upgrades in place.
Where is the "beat up" in the press? The exploit news? The way it gets in, the data out past firewalls? The ability to get past reinstalls/rebooting?

Get a clue, its not just the US/NSA that does this. They are just the ones that are getting beat up in the press.

Yep, it's too bad the NSA doesn't actually protect national security, and is instead just ensuring all the other state sponsored enemy spies can get at more info than a contractor like Snowed did.

Imagine what it would be like if the government wasn't allowed any secrets or wiretaps. Our public policy would be the same policy we actually furthered around the world -- We wouldn't have to worry about diplomats making secret arms deals behind our backs; If such things were actually required to save lives then we'd understand the circumstance. The only reason we can't trust their actions is because secrets mask their motives, even when they are on the up and up.

If the NSA were actually protecting the national security of America then they could be tasked with finding all the backdoors in the hardware and software. No one could put backdoors in for fear the NSA would find out, publish it, and ruin their business. Today they stay silent and let the public purchase systems the NSA likely knows have been compromised by enemy spies -- This saves the NSA time: They can just use the existing backdoor instead of put their own in. If the NSA weren't allowed secrets, they'd be eliminating exploits instead of leveraging them and our hardware, firmware, and OS's would be more secure. Eventually other governments would have to start up their own programs of outing intentional exploits just to ensure their people they weren't compromising public security. In addition to the Space Race, we'd have a Privacy Race, where competition would be in building the most secure systems. Public and private sector security experts could be assisted with new tools to show where flaws lie. Security would be a selling point and methods of provable security would be devised (I have done so myself on small scales). Computers and programs have finite state, so provable security is not impossible: Instead of spying the data centers and supercomputers could be tasked with hardening all the hardware and software. People would buy the USA security endorsed systems with pride. We'd have less identity fraud -- one of the most prevalent crimes. Conspiracies could be silenced through truth not ignorance. If we outlawed government secrets and required scientific evidence that their programs were helpful not harmful then we could trust our governments more than any citizens ever could before.

Sadly, we're too primitive and politically oppressed [wikipedia.org] to apply the simple Scientific Method to governance. None can have assured trust or security from prying eyes because we allow the government to have secrets. That the priority of secrets is valued above security by the spies is obvious and evidenced by the way they compromise security and do not inform the world that we are buying insecure products. They risk spies accessing more than Snowden ever dreamed due to the priority they place on secrecy over security in their digital spying programs. [theatlantic.com] These secret programs aren't getting beat up nearly as bad as they should be in the p

Or at least they're trying to. I wonder how good at it they are. The stuff described in the article seems mostly like sophisticated malware, which requires brains but no sophisticated hardware. That sort of thing is a traditional Russian strength, but I wouldn't be surprised if China is good at it too. It would be interesting if we could compare the capabilities.

I'm surprised you couldn't come up with at least some possibilities on your own, K. S. Kyosuke. I always thought that you were a smart cookie.

One obvious one is that the disk's firmware is updated to detect and modify critical Windows executables, DLLs or drivers with some additional code to send out information to remote servers once a network connection is detected, or perhaps to introduce flaws that can be exploited easily. The same could be done for Linux kernel binaries or modules, too, of course.

Another pretty obvious one is that the disk's firmware alters log files to remove any traces of intrusions, making it appear as though no intrusion has occurred.

Modifying OS level files would be defeated by software based disk encryption, as the hdd would have no idea what data it was storing...Ofcourse a backdoored HDD could always present the host system with a malicious boot sector, but again this would be defeated by having an unexpected system architecture...

fortunately I just turn off the wifi when I put the machine to sleep. it still does it, but at least I know it isn't sending anything to anyone.

And you are 'turning off' the wifi exactly how? Disconnecting the antenna, or trusting the software switch? (as opposed to a hardware switch interrupting the power or antenna, wouldn't that be a nice feature...)

Its depend if your air gapped or networked. if you are networked, the code enters, easily getting past very expensive 'protective' firewalls and hides deep avoiding any reformatting, reboots.
Later information is passed back out the now 'open' network as with any malware.
If your air gapped, physical access might replace a USB cable (keyboard) that RF (transits) the data.

It can do any number of things, but they have to be pre-arranged, as the disk cannot access main memory. It can, for example, inject code into the boot-loader or compromise known executables. The firmware compromise is not really necessary, but it can help disguising things. For example, with a firmware compromise you can do things like boot-code compromise only if the power went up less than a minute ago or if there was a reset shortly before. Then anybody reading the bootloader to verify it will not see the compromise. A BIOS-attack would be doing something similar, but without the possibility to hide so easily. (If these things become widespread, I will start to verify my BIOS regularly with an SPI adapter. No way to hide from that.

Full disk encryption with boot from a non-writable medium (kernel and initrd on CD in a non-burner drive, for example) will neutralize a compromised disk firmware pretty effectively or alternatively protect the boot-loader against manipulation. Of course "they" could then try to compromise the CD drive...

Still, the NSA is not magic. They do not even have the best hackers, just those with the biggest egos ans smallest morals. These tend to be rather mediocre. No, the problem is that PC security sucks badly and that you can break into almost any standard installation if you throw enough money at the problem. My guess would be that even a restrictive firewall configuration on a Linux firewall keeps them out reliably. Of course, if you use Windows, they can just get past that with the update mechanism and with active help from Microsoft...

If you actually go to the referenced article and read it you will see that these are exploits, not backdoors, and they apply to equipment from non-US manufacturers as well as from US manufacturers, for example Samsung and Huawei.

Do you think the NSA is somehow unique in possessing tapping and forensic tools for IT equipment?

Every police agency in the world will have some of this stuff. Heck, when I accidentally repartitioned a hard drive a couple of years ago I used some software to recover files by carving them. One of the items listed in the article was a splitter cable for crying out loud.

Backdoors are seriously different from exploits. One implies collusion between a national security agency and a manufacturer. An exploit is the work of somebody independent of the manufacturer.

The NSA is seriously a problem. However this summary states US equipment manufacturers are in collusion with them. Without presenting any evidence, and filters out information that contradicts that statement from the reference it cites.

The way in past expensive hardware and software is going to exist for some time. This is not good for network security. The ability to get data out without been tracked or logged is also not good for network security. The ability for code to exist past reinstalls and re emerge is not good for network security...
The basic networking security implications seem clear as presented in the summery and the linked story.

Even the delusionals that thinks of this is ok because "it is the NSA after all", it means that more people and agencies have access to those backdoors too, and more chances that it end in the hands of the guys with bad intentions, wherever they are or work for, using them for fun, profit or whatever.

I wonder what will do companies where their first line of "protection" is tools and hardware from cisco, juniper, dell or IBM (or engineers certified on them), now that is official that they are remote access tools for others, bury their heads on the sand or try something else.

I was working for a software company specializing in network security back in the post 2001 period. I recall that we had more than a few discussions with the unskilled egomaniac in charge of the marketing of that firm that many competitors were using their Canadian branch office addresses 'front and centre' in their marketing to the European market.

Why? Because one doesn't always want to be perceived as an American.

The myth of Americans with Canadian flag stickers on their passports is not completely false.

Well, he was horrified at the notion. In fact, if you want to see how existential angst can be suddenly manifest in someone's behaviour in an unexpected setting, try this. I expect that we'll see more of the same in the next year. Ultimately, countries will roll their own code, and have their own Silicon Valleys because of the national security issue. A few years ago I remember seeing an ad from I believe a Swedish firm selling routers and switches that were 'designed and built' in Europe with each unit only delivered to a physical address in Europe. Does anyone else remember this outfit?

Re other countries will roll their own code, and have their own Silicon Valleys because of the national security issue..
This really depends on the support and power of their top staff and gov.
The privatised telco networks, domestic and foreign policies, mil, special forces, police, gov (political and bureaucracy), armament manufacturers (exporters) might all have a say in any hardware import policy changes.
Some might be very beholden to decades of signals intelligence sharing and the hardware/software an

Nonsense. The BIOS malware is just to keep the compromise persistent, i.e. it reduces attacker cost for longer-term surveillance. It only becomes an issue when your system has already been compromised, and that is the real threat.

You can easily get rid of it, just re-flash. In an advanced compromise, that may need use of an SPI adapter, like the bus-pirate, but is it hardly difficult. Took me about 4 hours to re-flash an Intel NIC recently (same EEPROM as most mainboards), and that was only because I was very careful and wanted it to look nice for a possible show-and-tell with a customer that believes the MAC addresses are a security feature and hard or impossible to change. The most effort would likely go into removing and re-insta

Don't think for a second that these back-doors that companies put in at the behest of the NSA aren't also being used to the benefit of those companies.

So, if the NSA were shuttered tomorrow, what makes you think those back-doors are going to go away? How much is it worth to those tech companies to know exactly what their customers are doing? How much is it worth to their institutional shareholders?

See, the ugliest part of this is that it's a two-headed monster. Fight one head and the other one will come around and bite you. Both government and corporations have come to believe that they are beyond our reach, above reproach and entitled to everything you have.

How much is it worth to those tech companies to know exactly what their customers are doing?

And to the Chinese? Or Russians?

Snowden may have a guest pass in any one of these countries just to keep information surrounding these capabilities quiet. Russia did say he could stay so long as he quit spilling secrets.

It might be a mistake to think in terms of a 'them vs us' race. If the NSA says, "Backdoor the chips" to US companies and then shares that information with our 'enemies' in return for their backdoor exploits, that is worth more to all then trying to keep the capabilities to ourselves. They know we do it, we know they do it. But its still useful technology for keeping our respective populations under control. And that's what each of these governments fears more than an attack from the outside. The FBI/CIA/NSA might miss the occasional 9/11 or Boston bombing. But get on Twitter and try to amass public support for a "throw the bums out" movement and see how long that lasts.

Don't think for a second that these back-doors that companies put in at the behest of the NSA aren't also being used to the benefit of those companies.

Read the article please. The companies didn't do anything (really, you seriously think Huawei or Samsung is providing back doors to the NSA?). The NSA is compromising them the same way other bad guys get in - by finding and exploiting flaws in the OS.

The few mentions of hardware in the article are things like special monitor cables which would have to be added to a targeted computer by an agent.

Don't think for a second that these back-doors that companies put in at the behest of the NSA aren't also being used to the benefit of those companies.

There is no evidence from the article we are talking about intentional backdoors created at the request of NSA. Rather the kind of backdoors created by unintentional programming errors where once exploited allows foothold to be maintained by patching firmware of various hardware subsystems.

So, if the NSA were shuttered tomorrow, what makes you think those back-doors are going to go away? How much is it worth to those tech companies to know exactly what their customers are doing? How much is it worth to their institutional shareholders?

How much is legal trouble, bad publicity and resulting loss of customers worth to shareholders?

A (un)intentional backdoor actively exploited to gain market intelligence is a backdoor with high probability of discovery. Likewise any use of covert capability erodes that capability.

Agreed. I use coreboot on all my systems. I put my/boot/ on the firmware, and used a saved configuration so there's no searching for IDEs, etc. at boot. I boot to the login in less than a second.

I do a little firmware / OS dev of my own. Coreboot is far superior than "Secure Boot". Here's why: An OS must kick off its own crypto chain to verify executables and maintain the security provided by signed boot loader. Instead of having to go into the BIOS and enter some long hex code that you and your user

The NSA has a lot less power than the Stasi. The Stasi could directly go out and arrest or vanish people as it was the enforcement arm of a totalitarian regime. While the US is on the way to a classical totalitarian regime, it is not there yet (but it will get there unless stopped very soon). For example, secret executions of US citizens are really not something the NSA can do, while the Stasi routinely executed citizens it did not like. All completely legal, incidentally.

But yes, I agree that totalitarianism is making a comeback and the masses are cheering it on. Just like the last time. Last time, it took a war with 60 Million dead (just over 2.5% of the world population) to stop it. The catastrophe will be a bit bigger this time though and last much longer.

I'm not sure if the NSA seeking to exploit technology is particularly damaging to US firms. The NSA is seeking to exploit all technologies, not just American-based ones.
I think the part that does damage American firms, was the end of the second article. It read that the NSA has been redirecting the shipping of some computers to their address, installing software or hardware, repacking the device, and shipping it to the purchaser.

It would be resource consuming for the NSA to redirect a computer assembled in Britain and shipped to a Brit, but it would be trivial for the NSA to redirect a computer shipping from America. Therefore, this news is more damaging to US firms.

ORP1 is a high performance networking router that allows you to run a firewall, IPSec VPN (virtual private network), and a TOR server for your home network. Its easy-to-use web interface will make encrypted and anonymised communications for your entire network easier to set up and manage. Now you don’t need to be a geek to be able to ensure that every device you use at home uses the internet with privacy, whether it’s your home PC, smartphone or tablet.

Nearly all the stuff they are talking about requires your machine to be compromised somehow (virus/malware allowing malicious code execution). Once that happens, it's game over. It's just that the NSA has considerable resources to both attack a OS network access (looking for zero-day equivalent exploits to do that), and open source probably just makes it easier to look for likely problems in the source code (instead of trying to steal the source code from some company or disassembling the code).

Open source most likely makes it much harder for the NSA, because they're in the same boat as everyone else when it comes to looking for exploitable holes.With US based commercial software they can compel the vendor to hand over the code, as pretty much all of the major vendors have already done. That way the only people looking for exploitable holes are people the NSA has leverage against.

Where do you start explaining? You have a huge stack of software going from the GUI applications with plugins at the top, going all the way down to the NIC device drivers and firmware at the bottom. You can easily inspect network device drivers, they don't do much except read and write data out to ring buffers, but even then they had some issue with automatic scattering of data via virtual memory (an optimization that kernel security people didn't like). You can add hardware firewalls to your system, but th

You would need a trusted CPU, a new trusted open filesystem, a new trusted OS. That might just slow some of the code expecting a standard OS beyond a "firewall". Your keyboard, networking would still be fair game.

SELinux is not under suspicion. Putting backdoors in it would be glaringly obvious to anybody halfway competent doing an analysis, as it is just an access control layer and hence rather simple. Being hard to find is a critical characteristic of any professionally placed backdoor, and hence a backdoor in SELinux is very unlikely. You are barking up the wrong tree.

Except for the Intel CPU CPRNG, there is not indication any have ever been implemented. In the case of the Intel CPRNG, the design obviously is intended to hide any possible compromise, but that still does not mean there is actually one in there. More like, there will be special batches of CPUs shipped to specific targets that have a vulnerability. Still, any halfway competent security analysis sees that the design is malicious and will avoid using it.

Modern laptops and desktops come with remote administration tools built into the chips on the board. (The vendors tout this as a feature, simplifying administration of a large company's workstations. It's easier and cheaper to build it into everything than to be selective, so it's in the machines sold to individuals, too.)

I expect that is just common vendor incompetence with regard to security. Most of the people implementing crypto mechanisms did not even have a introductory crypto lecture. Hence most have no clue what they are doing and the vulnerabilities are just a result of that. I have seen some exceedingly incompetent "disk encryption" code by a vendor that everybody here would immediately recognize. There really is no need for intentional backdoor placement.

You mean the one that had all their crown jewels stolen by a contractor and does not even know what exactly was stolen a year later? I shudder to think how incompetent the second best must be, if that is the best one...